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Blog | Eric Hendel

Personal blog devoted to long-form book reviews and criticism.

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Showing posts from 2019

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Arrival by Ted Chiang

Posted by Eric Hendel December 31, 2019

Alternate History Contact Fiction Literary Works Magic Realism Reviews Short Fiction Anthologies Speculative Fiction Ted Chiang

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The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

Posted by Eric Hendel November 18, 2019

Climate Fiction Dystopias Novels Paolo Bacigalupi Reviews Robots Science Fiction Steampunk

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Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin

Posted by Eric Hendel October 31, 2019

Epic Fantasy Fantasy Feminist Works Literary Works Novels Reviews Speculative Fiction Ursula K. Le Guin

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Myst: The Book of Atrus by Rand and Robyn Miller with David Wingrove

Posted by Eric Hendel September 25, 2019

David Wingrove Epic Fantasy Multiverse Stories Myst Trilogy Novels Rand Miller Reviews Robyn Miller Speculative Fiction Young Adult

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Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

Posted by Eric Hendel August 30, 2019

Contemporary Fantasy Humor Magic Realism Neil Gaiman New Weird Novels Reviews Speculative Fiction Terry Pratchett

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Word Puppets by Mary Robinette Kowal

Posted by Eric Hendel August 15, 2019

Contemporary Fantasy Fantasy Mary Robinette Kowal Reviews Science Fiction Short Fiction Anthologies Space Opera Steampunk

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Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan

Posted by Eric Hendel July 31, 2019

Chen Qiufan Climate Fiction Cyberpunk Dystopias Ken Liu Novels Reviews Science Fiction Translations

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Alice Isn't Dead by Joseph Fink

Posted by Eric Hendel July 19, 2019

Dystopias Horror Joseph Fink Mysteries New Weird Novels Reviews Speculative Fiction

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Eric Hendel

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Labels

Novels36
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Speculative Fiction24
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Popular Posts

Strange Horizons Review of Nikhil Singh’s Dakini Atoll

(Cover Artist: Elena Romenkova ) A review I wrote of Nikhil Singh's novel Dakini Atoll is currently up in the most recent edition of Strange Horizons . This book was a very complex and fascinating story that skips between several different interconnected narratives, all of which are ultimately woven together into a work exploring themes of mass media and the nature of human awareness. The main storyline follows an actress named Delilah Lex, who as the novel opens realizes she has become trapped within the simulated reality of the television program she currently stars in (a virtual TV show called " Good Morning Delilah! "). However, this surreal narrative is also interspersed with the experiences of Anita--a corporate agent working for a quasi-religious organization called "Angelinc." There is also a storyline following a friend of Delilah's--a movie director named Fortunato who unexpectedly becomes drawn into an investigation of a mysterious global plague,...

Myst: The Book of Ti'ana by Rand Miller with David Wingrove

(Cover Artist: The Leonheardt Group) Rand Miller and David Wingrove's 1996 novel Myst: The Book of Ti'ana was a strange story to read, because while there was a lot about this book which I enjoyed, I also finished it fairly sure that the most interesting story the novel has to offer is not the one which the authors have succeeded in writing. Taking the form of a prequel to the prior installment in the Myst Trilogy (1995's Myst: The Book of Atrus ), The Book of Ti'ana is set many decades before the start of that earlier work. Following a woman named Anna who stumbles across the thriving subterranean civilization of D'ni, The Book of Ti'ana details how Anna befriends a citizen of this insular society named Aitrus. This is a character whose name, it should be noted, closely mirrors that of the protagonist of the earlier book except for a slight difference in spelling, but who nevertheless is explicitly indicated here to be an entirely different person. It'...

Arrival by Ted Chiang

The most striking quality of the stories appearing in Ted Chiang's anthology Arrival (which was originally published in 2002 under the title Stories of Your Life and Others ) is the author's ability to use fiction as a rhetorical device. By saying this I don't mean that Chiang's work is comprised only of messages which he seeks to impart upon his audience, or even that his stories explicitly take the form of moral/ethical parables aimed at demonstrating some kind of lesson to his readers. Rather, it's more that throughout this collection, Chiang produces fiction which often strives to explore the tension that exists between two or more subtly contradictory ideas, examining various perspectives on his subjects through the medium of narrative. Via stories as diverse as a very contemporary-minded retelling of a biblical parable, an alien first-contact story that touches on themes of predestination and free will, and a fictional documentary about the ethics of limiti...

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